APPT Macau: Putting in the hard yards

The life of a tournament pro on the road isn't all wine and roses. Team PokerStars Pro Isabelle Mercier was the last player to arrive for today's APPT High Roller event, having already run deep (37th in a field of 734) in this morning's PokerStars WCOOP $215 2-7 Triple Draw event.

Isabelle Mercier: is it 4.15am or 4.15pm?

Hiding behind her sunglasses, "No Mercy" joked that she almost had to bring her laptop to the poker table to fulfil her WCOOP commitments. Anything for the event sponsor!

While Isabelle shakes off her exhaustion, David Saab is full of beans, much to the amusement of Team PokerStars Pro Barry Greenstein.

"I came all the way to Macau for this?" Barry Greenstein, meet David Saab.

Not the most demonstrative player at the poker table, Saab has been getting a few wry grins from Barry, especially after he announce to the entire tournament floor that he was going to attempt to steal the blind of the "one and only Barry Greenstein". In respect of Saab's dramatic declaration, Barry duly mucked from the big blind.

Play is now into level 2 and some bigger pots are starting to emerge. On table five, a four-way pot has just been played out featuring Julian Powell, Joe Hachem, David Chiu and Tom Hall.

On a flop of 2d-3s-7h, Powell bet 2200, Hachem made it 4500 and the other two players folded. Powell checked to Hachem on the turn (7s), who bet 6000. Powell raised to 12,000, enough to put Hachem all-in, and the 2005 WSOP champ made the call, tabling pocket queens.

Powell grimaced as he showed pocket nines, which stayed in arrears with the 8c landing on the river. The Team PokerStars pro is up to 33,750, with Powell, also from Hachem's hometown of Melbourne, Australia, is down to just over 5000.

The arrival of Charles Chua, who finished runner-up in the APPT Macau main event that wrapped-up just over 12 hours ago, has ensured that the final entry list for the APPT High Roller is 61 players.